Location Name: Mihalik-Thompson Stadium
Year Dedicated: 2011
Association with Slippery Rock: Student-Athlete (Football – 1974 Graduate), Football Coach (1988-15), Faculty Member (1988-15)
In what is the perfect pairing of names between two men who dedicated their lives to Slippery Rock, George Mihalik joined N. Kerr Thompson as our stadium’s namesake in 2011 to form Mihalik-Thompson Stadium. It’s a very fitting combination as Thompson laid the groundwork for the football program and in turn Mihalik built it up to what it is today.
If there’s such a thing as a “Slippery Rock man,” Mihalik is the embodiment of it. He came to Slippery Rock in 1970 and was a three-year starter as a quarterback on The Rock football team, leading the squad to back-to-back conference championships in 1972 and 1973 prior to his graduation in 1974.
Mihalik became a graduate assistant with the program, then an assistant coach and eventually was named head coach in 1988. He served as the head coach for 28 seasons, compiling 197 wins, winning eight Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division Championships and reaching the NCAA Division II playoffs six times.
He finished his 28th season as The Rock's head coach with a sterling 197-111-4 career record and a .638 career winning percentage, the most wins ever recorded by a Rock football coach. At the time of his retirement in 2015, Mihalik ranked fourth among PSAC head coaches, and 27th in NCAA Division II history, in career wins.
A six-time PSAC West Coach of the Year honoree, Mihalik has been inducted into five different halls of fame: SRU Athletic (1997), Butler Area Sports (2001), Cambria County Sports (2006), Pennsylvania Sports Western Chapter (2012) and Bishop Carroll High School (2012).
The high-water mark of Mihalik's tenure came in 1998, when The Rock advanced to the national semifinals. The following season, Mihalik led SRU to a No. 2 ranking in the final regular-season national poll, the highest ranking in program history.
Equally, if not more impressive, is the fact Mihalik was one of the few coaches in the nation that had a doctorate degree and, much like Thompson, managed all of his coaching successes while also serving as a full professor in the SRU department of safety management long after the time when all coaches were also teachers. He continued teaching and advising students all the way through his retirement in 2015.
"George Mihalik's true measure of excellence is the positive difference he has made in the lives of thousands of students and student-athletes as a distinguished professor in safety management and SRU's head football coach," said Slippery Rock then president Cheryl Norton upon Mihalik’s retirement in 2015.
"He is a man of great integrity who has always placed the needs of students and the University above his own. Parents of recruits knew they could believe him when he looked them in the eye and told them he would look after their sons and help them succeed in the classroom and on the field. He's built a program at SRU that is envied by many – a program that values ethics, hard work and good sportsmanship – a program that will survive him long after he leaves the University.”